A first-term representative from Franklin County is supporting efforts to "defund" Planned Parenthood in Pennsylvania.

Rep. Paul Schemel, R-Greencastle, said he is sponsoring legislation that would encourage primary care operators to provide family planning and related health services in underserved areas.

"It does in effect leave little money for a clinic like a Planned Parenthood clinic," Schemel said.

Planned Parenthood and other health care "boutiques" would be on the bottom tier for Title X funding, he said. The legislation would bring Pennsylvania's share of the federal funding in line with the Affordable Care Act. The ACA has made Planned Parenthood services duplicative.

Schemel misunderstands the impact of the Affordable Care Act, according to Sari Stevens, executive director of Planned Parenthood in Pennsylvania.

"The passage of the ACA absolutely provided more women with health care coverage through the expansion of Medicaid and the establishment of the healthcare exchange," Stevens said. "What it did not do is increase the number of providers willing to serve low-income Pennsylvanians. The idea that eliminating Pennsylvania's largest family planning provider would be beneficial to Pennsylvania women, or reduce abortions is absolutely ludicrous."

A draft of the bill is expected soon, said Schemel, who hopes GOP leaders will move the bill this fall. Under legal review, it is one of several current proposals dealing with family health services.

The activity in Pennsylvania freshens the local debate over abortion rights.

Anti-abortion activists two months ago released a series of heavily edited videos that renewed the partisan, decades-old furor over abortion and Planned Parenthood.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee currently is holding hearings that target Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood provides contraception, cancer screenings, tests for sexually transmitted diseases and abortions. It operates 700 clinics across the country. Its $1.3 billion budget is funded 41 percent from government grants and reimbursements and 30 percent from private contributions, according to the group's most recent annual report.

Federal law prevents use of public money for abortion, except in case of rape, incest or when pregnancy endangers a mother's life.

Planned Parenthood in fiscal year 2014 provided 327,653 abortions in the U.S., according to the annual report. Abortion accounts for 3 percent of the group's medical services.

Schemel recently wrote in a newsletter to constituents: "If my proposal threatens Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, then it needs to be prepared to explain why it is better for a woman not to go to her own doctor for care."

Sheri Morgan, chairwoman of the Franklin County Democratic Committee, said Schemel's legislation makes some erroneous assumptions, including that women and teenagers have primary care physicians when many, she said, do not even with the Medicaid expansion.

Morgan added Schemel also assumes that possessing health insurance increases access to care. Research has shown that having healthcare insurance does not increase accessibility to care, especially for vulnerable populations.

Adolescents, who live with low-income families in rural areas, find it difficult to access health-care, according to researchers from Texas Woman's College.

Morgan said "it would seem counter-productive to reduce the choices of health-care providers" for those teenagers in light of the 2012 Community Health Needs Assessment for Franklin County. The report found that Franklin County's teen birth rate (42.8 of every 1,000 births) is higher than the Pennsylvania (30.8 per 1,000) and U.S. (41.2 per 1,000 births) rates.

"I posit that if Rep. Schemel's legislation would become law, we should expect to see higher teen birth rates and all the socioeconomic effects associated with higher teen birth rates," Morgan said. "Clearly, in Franklin County we need more avenues for reproductive healthcare and education, not less — which is what Rep. Schemel's bill would accomplish."

Schemel said the legislation would have little impact on Franklin County. Summit Health and Keystone Health could receive more reimbursement. Planned Parenthood sees more clients in underserved urban areas.

Planned Parenthood served about 108,000 patients in Pennsylvania last year, including 570 women in Schemel's district, a medically underserved area of the state, according to Stevens.

"'Defunding' is nothing more than a disingenuous, politically deceptive attempt to close down Planned Parenthood's health centers," Stevens said. "Women who come to Planned Parenthood aren't making a political statement; they are coming to get basic health care."

Schemel said legislators have been unable to determine how much state and federal money goes to Planned Parenthood through various programs. Pennsylvania provides a match to get federal Title X money.

Planned Parenthood benefits from government money in making referrals to its own abortion clinics, he said.

The recent "horrific videos" have brought the issue of abortion "front and center for people to think about," Schemel said.

The Center for Medical Progress, the anti-abortion group which surreptitiously made the video, alleges that Planned Parenthood profits in taking fetal tissue from abortions.

According to factcheck.org, the Planned Parenthood executive repeatedly said in the unedited video that clinics want to cover their costs, not make money, when donating fetal tissue from abortions for scientific research.

A recent Pennsylvania Department of Health investigation found that Planned Parenthood locations in the state do not donate, buy or sell fetal tissue.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll issued in August after release of the videos, nearly three-fourths of Americans continue to support providing federal funding for free women's health exams, screenings and contraception services. The support drops to 54 percent when Planned Parenthood is the recipient of federal money.